


mother i tried, please believe me

by ossomer



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon character deaths, Character Study basically, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 07:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2684414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ossomer/pseuds/ossomer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura says she understands that you do not want to get the sword because it could kill you and you want to scream at her. You are not afraid of death. You will not deny being a coward but it is not death you are afraid of. You can imagine a world without you in it and you think it sounds like a better place.<br/>But you cannot imagine a world without Maman.<br/>You cannot imagine a world without Laura.<br/>You are terrified and you are a coward but you are not afraid of dying. You are terrified that Maman was wrong about the Blade of Hastur and you will be left in a world without one or both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mother i tried, please believe me

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first Carmilla fanfiction. There are probably other things I should have been doing but the idea got in my head and wouldn't leave so I didn't have much choice. I didn't really proofread so hopefully it's coherent, but please let me know what you think!  
> Also - I know that technically Laura is the one who killed the Dean, but I figure that Carmilla would be under the impression that she killed the Dean herself, yeah?  
> The title is from "Isolation" by Joy Division.

Turning is the most physically painful experience you have ever had, and you have launched your undead body from the rooftops of skyscrapers and felt the hot metal of bullets tear through your skin and tried your best to hold your stomach together as a man your father trusted attempted to gut you like a fish. Through it all you can say without hesitation that nothing is more painful than the transition from mortal to vampire.

Maman is there the entire time, her hands softly stroking through your hair and holding you down as you seize and speaking words that you struggle to focus on, and you hope that if you can latch onto her words you can forget about the pain. It doesn’t work, but you try.

None of it works, really – the touches, the holding, the talking. None of it makes the pain any better. But she is there, and somehow that means something.

It takes three days for you to turn and the pain to stop and besides an overwhelming hunger all you feel is gratitude towards the woman who stood by your side throughout the whole thing.

It takes years for you to replace ‘ _she was there for me while I turned’_ with _‘she is the one who turned me.’_

(Sometimes you still forget.)

-

You find that you are a monster.

You crave blood constantly. All you want to do is sink your teeth into someone’s neck, to feel them struggle for their life against you, to feel their heart pound wild against their chest while you know they do not stand a chance. They will not escape and you will not spare them their life.

Guilt is a foreign emotion to you, one that died in your mansion along with your mortality. For years you feel no remorse, no guilt, no hesitation when it comes to drinking the life right out of someone.

But you are clumsy. You tear lines in their skin instead of piercing the holes that Maman makes look so easy and you are not good at keeping your fangs sheathed, at hiding the monster you are and lulling them into a false sense of security first.

_You will get yourself killed one day,_ Maman says, _when you make a mistake and there is someone around who knows how to deal with what you are._

So she teaches you the right way to hunt and feed and how to control your shape-shifting and how to ignore those sensations that are suddenly too much for you, like the way you can heart the heartbeat of the man halfway down the street, his pulse just begging you to sink your teeth into his throat.

(It feels strangely like the hours you spent with your mother as a young girl, learning how to braid your hair and ride a horse.)

-

The ritual only happens every 20 years and the years in between you spend mostly with Maman. Sometimes she has other things to do – trips that often last months and are far too important for you to know anything about – and in those times you are allowed to do as you please. And often you are accompanied by the vampires you are supposed to think of as family. ( _Supposed_ to, because it is hard for you to consider them family when most do not last longer than a few years, Maman staking them easily at the first sign of weakness.)

Maman knows everything, it seems. She takes you places you have only dreamed of and places you hadn’t even known existed as a mortal. She knows the best places to go in each country and city and she always has connections and she knows all of the history, every interesting piece of information about everywhere you end up. (Sometimes you wonder how old she is, and if maybe she knows everything because she was _there_ for everything.)

It is thrilling, for a while. But a day comes when you grow tired of it – sometimes in the late of mid-1700s, you would guess (because time became extremely unimportant not long after you turned; the only use you have for it is the ritual and even that is all done on Maman’s schedule). You want to explore a place for yourself, find the things that _you_ like and learn the history by being there, not by having it recited to you.

So you ask Maman if you can leave. “Just temporarily,” you assure her. “I’ll be back in the time for the ritual.”

She is upset, and you didn't expect anything less. But she is angrier than she has ever been at you and you wonder for a while if she will stake you for this transgression you were not even aware you were making.

“I gave you everything,” she says, and her voice never changes from that calm, almost-condescending tone you have grown accustomed to. “You are my favorite, Mircalla, and I have given you _everything_. And you want to leave me? This is how you repay me?”

She shakes her head and clicks her tongue and gives you the same speech you have heard a thousand times, always directed at another foolish vampire but never at yourself. Never at you. ‘ _Disobedience will not be tolerated and must be punished.’_

You expect a stake through your heart – Maman does not believe in allowing for the possibility of a second betrayal – but instead you find yourself a heap of broken bones on the ground. You are surrounded by brothers and sisters who are under strict orders to rebreak the bones as they heal.

Maman’s hand wraps around your ulna and your radius, squeezing just hard enough that you have to focus on not screaming. “I love you,” she says, “but next time I will not be so generous.”

You believe her. You believe that any future punishment will be beyond cruel. But more than that you believe that she loves you. It is not what you always pictured when you thought about how love is supposed to be but you believe her. She could have reduced you to nothing more than a pile of ashes on the floor but she didn’t. She wants to keep you, wants you to stay by her side. That has to count for something.

(At the age of 10 your mother and father had begun searching for the perfect husband for you, making lists of the surrounding areas and their influence and how badly they need their cooperation. You have never had someone who just wants you to _stay_ before.)

(You never ask to leave again.)

-

Elle tells you that she loves you and says that she wants to run away with you. It is a throwaway statement, just something she says while the two of your stare at the stars, but you grasp onto her words and you refuse to let go. You come up with a way to make it work and tell her all the things you want to show her and she smiles brightly and you make plans.

(You do not tell Maman because you know it will ruin her ritual plans and you remember what happened last time you tried to leave and you also feel guilty, guilty for wanting to leave her again but you only get so many years with Elle. Her lifetime ticks away like hands on a clock and you want to spend the next fifty years she might get with her. You will return to Maman eventually, when your time with Elle is up, so you do not tell Maman. You do not want her to force you to stay.)

You don’t know how Maman finds out but you at the same time, you aren't surprised. It hits like a sinking in your chest, just another thing Maman refuses you.

But she is there, Elle’s hand in hers where you are supposed to meet, and Elle watches with terrified eyes as your brothers and sisters – another set this time, all-new faces whose names you do not bother to learn – attack you. You call to her and promise it will all be okay but she shakes her head and it takes you a moment to realize that she is not scared _for_ you. She is scared _of_ you.

You stop fighting then, allowing your weaker siblings to land punches and scratches and break one of your fingers. You don’t want to be the monster she thinks you are. You thought you had proven to her that you aren’t a monster; you thought you had left that monster behind, somewhere in years past, thought that maybe you could have a chance to be happy, to pretend to be a human again.

Then Maman’s fangs slip out and her threats are not empty: “Fight back, Mircalla,” she says. “Show her what you are capable of or I will show _you_ what _I’m_ capable of.” And so your fangs press against your bottom lip and you fight back. Their necks snap easily under your hands until their bodies cover the ground around your feet, and you and Maman and Elle are the only ones left standing.

_‘They will wake up soon,’_ you want to scream, because you find that you cannot look Elle in the eye, but there is terror and hatred and betrayal and something you can’t quite name floating in the tears that run down her cheeks.

She tells you that she hates you and says that she trusted you as if now she can’t and the last thing she calls you is a monster before she leaves, Maman’s hand in hers, and you want to chase after them because you know Maman is not leading her to safety, but as their backs turn your siblings wake up and they hold you back as you collapse in tears.

(“You are not a monster,” Maman assures you later, “you are a beautiful, glittering diamond. _My_ diamond. You could never love her.”)

The coffin is your punishment this time, when Maman finally returns for you. You are angry and heartbroken and hurt and just _broken_ , but you cannot help the love that is in your heart for your mother. It is there, just as strong as and right beside the hatred you feel for her, and you are not sure what to make of that.

(But the coffin is your punishment and it reminds you at first of your childhood days, forced to stay in your locked bedroom for misbehaving. It is smaller and full of blood and so _so_ dark and a thousand times more terrifying, but it is also the same. It is time-out and this is what mothers do, this is just part of a mother’s love. The details have changed, but the punishment is the same.)

You hate Maman but you love her and you just hope that when you finally get out she still loves you too.

-

You are 300 years old but you often feel like an angry teenager, passive aggressive and messing up Maman’s plans as secretly as possible.

She lectures you and cuts lines in your skin, tightens her hand around your wrist until your bone snaps, but there is no other punishment.

You hate yourself for this monster that you are and you hate her for turning you into one (the word still echoes in your brain with Elle’s voice, _monster monster monster monster_ and it is something you don’t think you will ever forget), but Maman still loves you, somehow, and so how could you leave?

-

Laura Hollis treats you like a person, usually. She ties you to a chair and mocks your past with sock puppets but she trusts you to save her from Will and convinces you to stay and expects you to help her bring down your mother. It amazes you.

Sometimes you want to scream at her. She looks at you like any other person with a bad past, like a drug addict who is getting clean, like you have a bright future ahead of you and everything in the past just doesn’t matter, like the thousands of people whose blood is on your hands is just the same as cheating on your first test in college. She looks at you like you are _human_ , like you are not a _monster_ , like she expects you to be better than that and you want to tie her to that damn chair and make her listen to you as you tell her about the girls you destroyed and the necks your teeth have pierced and the sound bodies make when they fall, veins empty, screams having died from their throats minutes ago.

(But she expects you to be better and she makes you _want_ to be better and so you remain silent.)

Elle hated you for the monster that you are.

Mother loves you because of it.

Laura doesn’t even seem to notice it.

-

Laura calls you a coward and you figure that she’s right. You _are_ a coward. You are terrified to face your mother in a fight to the death. You are terrified to fight alongside Laura and Danny and Perry and LaFontaine to stop whatever evil your mother is a part of. You will not argue with that.

But she says that she understands that you don’t want to get yourself killed and you want to scream at her again, because _she understands nothing_ and doesn’t she at least get that? Death does not scare you. You are terrified and you are selfish but you are not afraid of death.

You are afraid that Maman is wrong. You are afraid to get the Blade of Hastur and defeat your mother and be left standing. You are afraid that Maman will kill Laura before you can save her. You are afraid to be left alive, whether you are standing beside of Laura or Maman or you are standing alone.

You are not afraid of death. You can imagine a world without you in it and you think it sounds like a better place.

You cannot imagine living in a world without your mother.

You cannot imagine living in a world without Laura.

You are terrified, but not of death. You are terrified of living.

-

Of course Laura Hollis leaves you no choice. Stupid, idiotic, naïve, innocent, determined, brave Laura.

She has willingly and knowingly walked herself to her deathbed and unknowingly led you to your own personal hell.

Laura makes the choice for you so you send Danny and her sisters to help the damn idiots who got themselves trapped underneath the Lustig Building and you go get the Blade of Hastur.

You have no choice but to hope that it works.

-

You hit Maman with the hilt of the sword and she falls into the light in front of you ( _because of you)_ and you have to hold back the horrified cry that tries to force its way out of your throat. You have just killed the only constant presence in your life for the past 316 years. You have just killed the only person who has loved the monster inside of you. It is a twisted kind of love, you understand that; perhaps it was never truly love at all, and you understand that, too. But it felt like love to you and it is one of the few forms of love you have ever known and you have just killed it.

You have just killed your mother.

And then you see Elle and you feel the tears running down your face and you aren’t sure what the final straw was. Why are you crying? Is it because of your mother? Is it because of Elle? Is it because of Laura? You are not used to this bombardment of emotions and you can’t tell where one begins and another ends and the tears keep falling and you don’t know _why._

“You know, I really am starting to hate this heroic vampire crap,” you say, eyes landing on Laura, because it is all you can think of. It makes you feel better, somehow, to hide behind the sarcasm and hardened exterior you have created for yourself. It is a comfort blanket. The tears racing down your face and the way your voice cracks give your vulnerability away but it is something you needed to do for yourself. It makes you feel stronger, even if you know that you aren’t.

And then you turn back and you leap before you can think twice, sword ready to pierce through the light.

You pray to a God you stopped believing in hundreds of years ago that Laura will be okay. You think that she will be – you tell yourself that she will be, she _has_ to be – because she is stronger than you. She has won her war and it will just be a matter of time before she adjusts to a world without Carmilla Karnstein.

It has to be true, you think as the light begins to shake, as you begin to fall, because it is too late for you to turn back now.

You are just glad that the last face you see is hers.


End file.
